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General Travis Tyler had a reputation as a hard man. Fair, but hard. He was a man for this time, a time of nuclear and biological horrors, of an America licking terrible body wounds, an America with a third of its population killed within the last few months.
As a long-serving combat veteran and the head of the all-important nanobot research project Tiny Fortress, he commanded loyalty and not a little bit of fear. Not since Major General Leslie Groves headed up the Manhattan Project did one military man have so much leeway with a United States administration.
The scene he had in mind was designed to leverage, to use, that power and that fear.
For the best of reasons, of course.
He looked at himself in his office lavatory mirror, rubbing at his rapidly smoothing face. It had been only days since he had accepted the Eden Plague virus, and already he was feeling fitter, smarter, younger.
And a bit less ruthless.
Tyler accepted the inevitable with good grace: immortality in exchange for his killer instinct. It was a good trade for an old man. Yesterday he and his wife had made love with forgotten vigor and satisfaction. For the first time in years he’d finished his five-mile morning run without downing a handful of pain pills, and he’d begun to see the lines in his face disappear. Instead of sixty, he now looked forty.
Fortunately his gray hair would take a while to go.
That made it even more important that he get on with this job. Soon many of his troops and staff would instinctively dismiss a man who looked twenty-five, no matter how many stars he wore. It would take years, perhaps a new generation, to get over humanity’s biologically based judgment ascribing wisdom and gravity only to mature appearance.
He strode down to the waiting convoy of vehicles that would take him to his meeting with the entire Secret Service Presidential security contingent. “We have the body?” he asked rhetorically. The nanocommando team leader was a good man, and they’d discussed the plan several times; there was no doubt he had it.
Still, trust but verify.
“Yes, sir.” The two men piled into the back of the armored SUV and the five-vehicle group raced off.
It was only ten minutes or so to the Presidential Mansion complex, but they bypassed the main residence to pull in at the large double doors of a basketball gym left over from the days when the government compound was a university campus. Inside, ranks of Secret Service men and women sat in the bleachers, most of them in their usual dark suits.
Army troops controlled the building this time, not the Secret Service. This fact made the latter distinctly uncomfortable; Tyler could see it in their eyes and their demeanors as they sat. He could also sense their unease at having been disarmed.
His ten nanocommandos stayed near him at all times. They weren’t unarmed, and his people and some of the Secret Service eyed each other like stiff-backed dogs; however, most of the Service people kept their eyes down.
They had a lot to be ashamed of.
Two of the commandos carried a stretcher in, its burden covered by a blanket, and set it down in the center of the floor. Looks like the right time for a coup, Travis thought. Some of the Secret Service people are smart enough to sense it too. But are they smart enough to wait and see? Well, that’s one reason I had them disarmed.
“Colonel,” he addressed the commander of the Army troops, “clear your men out and set up an external perimeter. No one comes nearer this building than thirty meters.” They filed out the several exits, and then he told his commandos to double-check the security. Only when there was no one but his bodyguards and the Secret Service people remaining did he begin his speech.
“Most of you know me by sight, but for those who don’t, I’m General Travis Tyler, in charge of the lab complex and the base as well. And some of you knew my son.” He reached down to flip the blanket off the body on the stretcher, revealing the corpse of Major John Thomas Tyler, US Army, deceased.
A gasp went up from the Service personnel, and a buzz of conversation.
“Silence!” Tyler roared. “Now I’m going to tell you all something some of you already know. For those of you who don’t have a clue, count yourself lucky. For those who do, I suggest you prepare yourself for hell, because there’s only one way through.”
He gestured with a straight arm at the body. “This was my son. I executed him with my own hands, for murder, for treason on the battlefield, and for suborning treason. My son betrayed me, he betrayed the President, and he betrayed the United States – and so have many of you. Some of you are even now hooked on an addictive nanobot, one which serves up euphoria and steals your free will and your self-respect. I hear you call it nanocrack. I bet some of you are already feeling withdrawal effects. And guess what – you aren’t getting any more. Ever. Not from him, and not from anyone else. I’ve already cleaned house in the labs. I’ve already summarily executed three more people. Remember, we’re still under martial law.”
Tyler could pick out many of them now by the horrified, trapped looks on their faces. Others, showing confusion, were likely innocent. He went on, gesturing at the body again.
“I considered locking JT up, trying to treat him medically, trying to rid his body of the viruses and nanomachines he had injected himself with in a quest to be a superman. But he spread the nanocrack he discovered to others. He spread it to those he wanted to control; he spread it to many of you; and he slipped it to the President, to try to control him too. We don’t entirely know how deep the corruption goes, but I couldn’t take the chance that my son and his hidden allies could pull off the coup he planned. He had to be made an example. My example, so you know how serious I am.”
Tyler paced up and down in the middle of the wooden floor, the body and his commandos his backdrop. “Some of you are wondering if I’m taking over instead. The answer is unequivocally no. The President is being cleansed and detoxified. For those of you who are addicted, this is your one and only chance, right now, to save yourselves. If you are addicted, stand up and walk over there, where my men are waiting.” He pointed with an arm. “Right now, no kidding, do it right now. If we find anyone with those nanos in his system after this one-time amnesty, the penalty will be summary execution.”
Several people stood up immediately, resolutely, followed by more in a wave. Within a minute over fifty people, about half of the Secret Service Presidential security detachment, were standing in the designated place hanging their heads. “All right, the rest of you stay in the bleachers. There is a medical team coming in to run tests on all of you right now.”
A man, red-faced and sweating, stood up suddenly from the bleachers and bolted for the addicted group. Tyler smoothly and unhurriedly lifted his .45 from its holster, cocked it and shot the man three times in the lower torso. He collapsed to deathly stillness on the polished wooden floor.
A ringing silence followed the three sharp reports, and Tyler thumbed the hammer down as he swept the bleachers with his gaze. “Apparently he didn’t believe me when I said that was his last chance. So. One final amnesty. Five seconds. Now or never.” He waited, but no one moved, and eventually he nodded sharply and holstered his weapon.
“Now listen, all of you. You will say nothing about what happened here today. Nothing whatsoever. No one can know the President’s protection is so incompetent, or how you people failed.” His tone dripped with contempt for those who had lapsed in their duties. “No one need know how you soiled yourself and your reputation. That includes what happened to my son, or this man, or any other details. Until the United States has full control of its own territory again, this is all top secret.”
He turned to the commandos. “Captain, take these sorry sons of bitches to the hospital for treatment. And get that body out of here.” He gestured at the man he’d shot.
Shot with Needleshock, but no one needed to know that right now. He’ll live, though he’ll never be in the Secret Service again. I hear the Free Communities have a nice rehabilitation camp in Antarctica.
As soon as the addicted ones had been herded out, the Army troops moved back in, warily watching as a military medical team tested the remaining personnel. Before they finished, General Tyler went to see the President. He had a report to make, and he’d heard that President McKenna had a new assignment for him.
And retirement orders.
Not surprising. From his point of view, I have too much power. It has to be spread around. Well, I have a long life ahead of me. Maybe I’ll be a general again, after a few years, or a few hundred.
